BlackBerry 8130 vs. BlackBerry 9100... fight!

Some of us at Engadget HQ won't ever be sold on the merits of SureType over good, old-fashioned QWERTY, but there's clearly a market for it -- RIM's BlackBerry Pearl series almost singlehandedly catapulted Waterloo into the consumer market, after all, and the upcoming 9100 looks to refine the formula to a crisp, golden brown perfection. Here, we've got one of the originals -- the 8130 -- beaming proudly next to its offspring, and RIM seems to have done a commendable job updating the package in all the right ways (optical trackpad, Bold 9700-esque design elements) while carrying over most of what the old model great. And knowing these guys, you'll be able to get it in a billion colors and special edition designs -- but for now, you can have these comparo shots in any color you want, as long as it's black.

[mrschticker Posted Dec 16th 2009 10:00AM]

I just hope they bumped the processor/ram (or its mobile equivalent) up a bit, not just the outer hardware bits. I LOVED this phone initially, but after a year or so it just didn't have the horsepower to do the multitasking that makes the blackberry platform so great.

And so we wait -for a CDMA version of this puppy, hoping that RIM is able to put a little webkit lovin' in there as well

[hey Posted Dec 16th 2009 10:05AM]

The beauty of a Suretype device is that you get the power of a smartphone in the size of a dumbphone.

I look forward to the new Pearl. I only hope that it gets a proper spec bump to go along with its updated look. IMO, the only things that really killed previous Pearls was the low memory and processor. It was OK when it was released, but as the software got more graphically rich, the Pearl became a sluggish mess.

[restoration85 Posted Dec 16th 2009 4:23PM]

The compact qwerty layout is great after a month or so of using it. I had a Shadow for two years and loved it. Now I opt for the compact qwerty keyboard on my Hero; it just makes for better use of the space in portrait mode.